Cinderella
by Slytherin Cat
Summary: When her stepmother sent her to shop for food, the last thing Luna expected was to meet a strange little red-haired girl. Little did she knew that that girl has a brother, and that he just happen to be the Prince. Luna/Harry, AU, (OOC?), written for Lady.


This OS was written for Lady, who requested a Harry/Luna Romance. I hope you like it, and I'm afraid I sort of ignored your other prompts. Sorry *but unrepentant*.

Also for the 52 Weeks of Writing 2013, Week 6 ('How much do you want for...'), the As Strong as we are United Competition (star, bookstore and blue), the One Character Competition, Round 5 (No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't.- Marilyn Monroe, prompts: quill, dark, moth), the If You Dar Challenge (Continued), prompt Once Upon A Time (668), the Wand Wood Competition (Ebony), the Key Signature Competition (C major).

Please review!

_Word count:_6601

**Cinderella**

There was no one in the world Luna despised more than Cho and Marietta, who unfortunately were her half-sisters. Even Rita, their horrible mother and Luna's stepmother for longer than she wanted to remember, wasn't as terrible as the two daughters she had had with a previous husband.

Her father, Xenophilius, was a great reporter and rich explorer, though even Luna admitted he was more than a little eccentric, and she knew that the rich part – as well as the fact that his job meant he was absent most of the year – was the only reason Rita had married him.

He had been very much in love with her mother, Selene, whom he had met on one of his numerous trips, and Luna had been born not even two years after their meeting and subsequent wedding. She knew her father had even talked of retiring, in order to spend more time with "his girls" but when Luna had been just about to turn four she had had a fatal accident with the latest spell she had been working on.

Selene had been a skilled spell crafter after all, a rare gift she had inherited from her people and those skills had been the reason Xenophilius came to that part of the world in the first place. Luna knew she had the potential to do what her mother did, but her relationship with that magical field was shaky at best. It was a bad thing, because if there was a single thing she remembered from what her mother and her father said about the craft, it was that she needed to have a strong connection with Magic, one filled with confidence instead of doubt. She was the one who deemed you worthy of her help or not, after all. Luna loved the art, because it made her feel closer to her mother but she hated it too, because it had taken her from the family she should have stayed with.

Her father had almost been destroyed by his wife's death, and he had taken to travel more and longer than before. Luna got it, it was his way to cope, and she couldn't hold it against him because she loved him and she knew he loved her just as much as she did, but she really wished he had chosen to stay and spend more time with her.

She knew that the only reason he had remarried was so she wouldn't be alone when he left and because he thought every girl should have a mother. It was why he had chosen Rita, even though he knew she wasn't the most perfect woman and that he didn't love her like he had Selene - he liked her, but that was all and Luna thanked the gods every day for it, because she knew she wouldn't have been to stand it if they really had been in love.

Rita already had two daughters when he met her, both older by a few year than Luna, and he thought they'd make great older sisters for her, so his daughter could have girls to play with instead of staying alone in her room all the time. Cho and Marietta both looked well-educated, respectful and they obviously were loved by their mother who gave them anything they needed, and so he had thought Rita could and would come to care for Luna as she did her daughters, and that Luna would gain someone she could call mother and confide in.

In the beginning, things happened exactly the way Xenophilius wanted them to. He had decided to take two months off, to spend the winter setting things up for his new wife and daughters and to take some time to see how Luna was dealing with everything and would be alright when he left. Rita and her two daughters had been nothing but kind to her during those two months and when Xenophilius left at the beginning of February, he felt confident Luna would be alright, consider Rita as her new mother and be well taken care of.

It was only after he had left that the older woman revealed her true self and that her daughters proved themselves to be everything but respectful and well-educated. It began slowly, and truthfully Luna didn't notice it at first, because the events were so small and seemingly insignificant that she didn't even thought to look for them. Now of course, when she looked back on it, she realized how all those little events piled up and formed a bigger – and uglier – picture.

Dinner's hour got changed without her knowing it, ensuring she'd get punished when she was late for it – nothing too drastic of course, just a toy or another taken away for a time that slowly became longer until she never saw them again – her lessons were harder and longer than Cho and Marietta's were, and she often had to stay indoors when her half-sisters could play outside in the sun as much as they wanted.

Rita began to tell her that she should spend more time with the servants, because "a proper Lady should know the people who work for her personally" – said servants liked her and always were nice to her, but she never understood the pitying looks they gave her when they thought she wasn't looking. She couldn't know how much they wanted to tell her the truth, but who wanted to tell a young girl she was used by the only mother figure she knew?

By the time her sixteenth birthday came, Rita's speech had changed to "a proper Lady should be able to do the job others do for her", and Luna realized just how easily she had been used. She knew better than to confront the three women who worked on making her life hell on how this made sense though – because how could they say they were true Ladies if they took a point to stay as far away from any kind of manual work?

The blonde girl probably would never know how that had worked, but Rita had somehow managed to convince her father that this was a good idea and a great experience. Of course, he didn't know that they used it to make Luna's life as miserable as possible, and of course she didn't have the courage to tell her father what was happening. She knew it would break his already fragile heart – it had never truly mended after Selene's death – to know of the true nature of the women he had trusted his daughter's life with.

Maybe had he stayed in England for longer, with her, and more often than two weeks a year (one for Christmas and the other for her birthday, the two best weeks in the year) she would have told him, but she didn't want to worry him. He loved travelling and she would never be the one to take away from him what brought him such happiness.

Since she couldn't spend time with her father, she did the next best thing each time she had free time: she went to their library. It was her place of escape, especially since she was the only one to go there since her mother died. Selene had left diaries in there, summaries and notes and whatever projects she had been working on for the year before her death. Some even dated of before she met Luna's father, but all had a common point: they were absolutely not organized, because it seemed her mother had been unable to concentrate on a single subject for long without having another idea for another spell or object.

Luna loved reading what her mother had researched, because even though the writing style was sometimes – okay, often – dry, it provided an insight on who her mother had been, and Luna could fell while turning the page and struggling to decipher a particularly badly written equation that her mother had truly loved her work.

Her mother wasn't the only one who liked to write about what she did though. It appeared to be a kind of tradition, because her father also did it, though his works were much easier to read. He had a way with words that brought you in the middle of his adventures before you knew it, often in less than a single page, and Luna found herself drinking the written words of her father's adventures, wishing she could be with him instead of there. The best part weren't the stories though. No, they were the drawings her father used to illustrate his travels' diaries.

From what he had written in one of his earliest books, he had met an old man inn ancient tribe in Northern America, and in exchange for a healing spell created especially by Luna's mother, the old man had given him lessons on how to draw, with only ink and a quill. Her father had actually kept the quill he had learned to draw with, and it was stuck in a preservation spell at the last page of that book. Luna often stared at it, wishing her father could teach her this skill, because she loved to draw but with no one to see what she did, she couldn't really be sure her work wasn't absolutely worthless – it wasn't. It just was… different.

In another part of the world, he had discovered an ink that could be used to make the drawings seem alive, and since then Luna could spend hours just looking at a picture of a dark forest with trees moving in the wind, or of sirens playing in a small hidden creek.

Her father sold his books; it was how he had made his fortune and how he was so well-known. Well, also because his travels gave him access to magic thought lost, magic he carefully kept the secret of, hiding what could be used to harm and only revealing strange and new healing methods, old and forgotten recipes, ways to get rid of unwanted insects (moths, bugs, spiders…) that he had traded for. But the books that could be found in bookstores weren't the same as the one Luna had. The one in their library were the originals books, the ones her father wrote just for her. They were unedited, with grammar and spelling mistakes, big ink blots from when he had had to use a candle as only light and paused to see what he had written, but those imperfections were the profs that they had been written by a real person and not spells, and that made them all the more precious to her.

Some parts – even whole diaries – had never been published, because her father liked to talk about what the 'normal' society thought of as impossible creatures. These had been the reason her father was labeled as a madman in certain circles. Luna just thought him a genius, and sneaked out of her room after her curfew as often as she could, with a cup of her favorite hot chocolate made especially for her by Annie, who was in charge of the kitchens, and settled herself in the old and comfortable armchair to read about his adventures.

She'd probably never run out of things to read, because he wrote a diary by place he visited, and when he came he usually brought at least half a dozen new ones with him for her to read. She also had a lot of other things to occupy her time, and she knew that if she spent more time than she should in her hiding place, she'd be forbidden to go there and given even more chores. She already had so much to do…

Which brought her back to how much she hated her 'half-sisters'. She had tried to be nice, thinking that perhaps if she treated them like she wanted to be treated then they'd like her, but all they did was bring her down and order her around whenever they had something they wanted done and didn't want to do – which meant every time they saw her. She had thought of fighting back, but that would mean sinking to their level and if there was one thing Luna refused to allow herself to do, it was making someone as miserable as she was. So instead she had learned to make herself invisible, ever present but yet unnoticeable. Magic was helpful for much more than washing dishes and tidying up rooms after all, and the dark was a better place to be than the spotlight if it meant she could get to escape at the end of the day.

Unfortunately that day hadn't been the one she managed to avoid them entirely, and perhaps they had noticed her little game and decided she needed to do more, but the thing was that she had expected to be left alone in the house while they went to visit one of Rita's old friend who apparently had a way for them to obtain invitations to Prince Harry's coming of age Ball. Never mind the fact that Cho and Marietta both were older than him – he was turning eighteen in two weeks, and Marietta, the youngest, was already 21. Not that much of an age gap, but still, it made them less than likely to be considered as potential wives for their future King.

But it seemed that her plans to stay in the library for the whole day weren't to be, because instead she found herself with a list of thing to buy longer than an arm – why couldn't they send Asla, their House-Elf to do it, was a mystery, especially since the little creature was more than happy to serve. Thank the gods for bottomless and weightless bags though – as well as preservations spells – because she knew her shopping would take her the whole day, and she'd rather still have arms at the end of the day.

She wasn't even to half her list, and the sun told her it was around midday, when a little girl crashed into her. Luna only had the time to see mischievous brown eyes and auburn hair before the child started running again. _'Must be the Nargles'_. She blinked hard, twice, but when she looked again the necklace that had fallen off from her was still on the ground. It was a fragile gold chain – the clasp had fallen off, nothing that a wave of her wand hadn't fixed as soon as she noticed it though – but the most exquisite part was the white and blue sparkling star in a pendant that looked more heavenly than human-made. On the other side were incised just a few words, but the _'Because you'll always be our little star. Love, your parents'_ just told her that she had to find that girl and give it back to her. If only because no one should be separated from a parents' gift.

Fortunately it seemed the girl hadn't run far. Unfortunately, the reason she hadn't was because she had met the possibly worst men in the town – Argus Filch. Filch was the village's butcher, and he absolutely hated children, something Luna had learned long ago, when Rita had left her in his shop and she had nightmares for weeks from the things he had showed her because she had been too noisy. He looked about to hit the little red-haired girl, probably because she had ran into him too and looked too proud to apologize, and well, Luna couldn't let that happen.

"Emma, there you are! I've been looking for you everywhere. Your father is so worried. Really, leaving like that. It's not the way you've been raised, young lady." She really hoped her best imitation of Rita dealing with her daughters would suffice, and she sent a pleading look to the surprised and a little less terrified girl, telling her to play along.

Apparently, the look worked a lot better than she thought it did, because the girl whose name surely wasn't Emma immediately took a contrite look and ducked her head, hiding her face under her hair, and said in a little voice that she was sorry.

Filch didn't look too happy to let her go, but he accepted a few more Galleons when she paid for the meat and they left with no problems.

As soon as they were out of sight and the grumpy man couldn't hear them anymore, Luna heard laughter, and sure enough when she turned her head, mischievous brown eyes were filling themselves with tears of laughter. What she had just done hit her, and she soon found herself laughing as well. She had dreamed to pull one over the old man for years, and now that she had had the opportunity and saw the bitter face he had made when they left his shop was enough to make her forgot how unwillingly she had come here in the first place.

"Thank you very much Mrs."

"Come on, do I look that old? I'm no Mrs. You can just call me Luna, sweetie."

"Sorry. I'm Elise, by the way, not Emma. Just in case you need to save me again."

Luna laughed again. This day kept getting better, and it had been years since she had laughed like that.

"It's me who should apologize. I had no right to make you sound like some…" her nose turned up in mock-distaste "savage."

"Well what you said was kind of true." She looked sheepish, but absolutely not sorry for her actions, and the action reminded her of why she had looked for the little girl in the first place.

"Anyway, Elise, you dropped this and I thought you'd like it back." As soon as she saw the piece of jewelry, the brown eyes widened and she almost snatched it out of Luna's hand in her eagerness to get it back.

"My necklace," she whispered, almost reverently. When she looked up again into Luna's eyes, the girl's eyes were so grateful Luna was taken aback for a moment.

"Thank you so much. My parents would have killed me had I lost it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" talk about mood swings. That little girl made Rita look like a nice kitten. She was frightened a second, the next happily laughing, the next sorry and then back to happy again.

"It was nothing. Really, anyone would have done the same."

The glare Luna received had that made her wonder just who Elise was, before it changed again and became… _assessing? _Whatever she must have seen pleased her, because she looked happy with herself and suddenly very determined.

"Tell me what I can do to repay you."

"Nothing."

"Please, there must be something I could do to help you like you helped me?"

Luna doubted it, but she just said that there was nothing she wished for. Instead of looking disappointed, like Luna thought she would be, Elise looked very happy with herself and grabbed Luna's hand with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Well in that case let me help you with your shopping."

"I don't really know… Aren't there people looking for you? Your parent maybe?"

The sheepish look was back.

"Imayhaverunawayfrommybrother butdon'tworryit'sallfineI'msurehe'snotworriedatall."

"Sorry, I didn't understand that." The Nargles definitely were sneaky creatures, meddling with the brains of little girls like that… How no one believed her father when he told of these creatures was beyond her.

"I said that I may have a brother looking for me somewhere… But don't worry, it's fine. He's used to me running of on my own. So please, can I go with you?"

It was clear that even if Luna said no, the girl would follow her and get in more trouble or ran away again, getting into even more trouble. And that brother of hers who was nowhere in sight… She sighed heavily and made the mistake of looking into the brown eyes staring pleadingly at her.

"Didn't your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"But you're not a stranger! You told me your name and you _saved _me!" She stopped a moment and looked warily at Luna. "Does that mean I can come with?"

"I suppose so. But you stay close, and for the love of Morgana, try not to run into anyone."

As she watched the little auburn-haired girl jump all around the place, screaming happily, she knew that she would need all the courage she could gather.

It turned out that letting the girl stay wasn't such a bad idea, because apparently she annoyed the merchants and the other clients that she burned through her list twice as fast as she had expected to, and quickly found herself eating apples with the little girl on the grass, soaking in the sun and telling her stories.

"You mean no one told you you were pretty when you were a little girl? But… but that's horrible!"

Luna couldn't remember how she had ended up telling Elise about her childhood, but she was sure the discussion had begun with her telling a story about her father trying to find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Now, though, the girl was more distraught than happy, and she would have found the whole situation funny hadn't she been unable to find a way to calm the girl down.

"It really wasn't that bad. I'm sure my mother told me, but I can't remember it…" She trailed of as she noticed that this was apparently the wrong thing to say, because if the girl had been distraught before, she now looked horrified. Elise plopped down on the ground and hugged a surprised Luna hard.

"That's horrible. You can't remember your mother? But that's so sad! I can't imagine not remembering my mum. I'd miss her all the time!"

Luna swallowed back the lump at the back of her throat and tried to change the subject.

"I have a lot of things of hers, and I have her journals too, so it's like she's still with me. No, how about I tell you about how once upon a time a formidable adventurer found the girl of his dreams?"

Elise looked interested by the prospect of the story, but she was still too indignant to accept.

"But it's not the same! Mothers should be here always, to tell you every day about how pretty you look, how nice this ribbon in your hair make you look, teach you how to put make-up on… My mum always says that every girl should be told they're pretty, even if they're not," she stated matter-of-factly.

"She sounds nice."

"Yeah, she's the best mother ever." Elise's eyes grew wide, and she immediately began to apologize.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't think… I'm so so sorry Luna!"

She waved the apology away, and offered another fruit to the girl she had come to like in in single afternoon. This was nicer than staying in the library alone, she thought as she stared at the passing clouds, basking in the comfortable silence while she could.

"Elise, there you are!" Of course, it wouldn't last long.

Everything happened very quickly, and before she knew it, Luna found herself introduced to Harry, Elise's older brother who had been looking for her all the afternoon (insert a mock-glare from him and a sheepish look that fooled no one from the little demon), blushing as he kissed the back of her hand, his emerald eyes twinkling with the same mischievous look than his sister before he sobered up.

"How much do you want for this?"

What was it with this family? Didn't they know anyone nice in their life?

"Like I told your sister, there is nothing I need. It was something anyone with a brain not addled by Nargles would have done."

He arched an eyebrow at her words, but looked more curious than mocking like she expected him to be. After all, it was all everyone did whenever she told them of those creatures.

"Are you sure there's nothing I could do to help you?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Elise gestured to her brother something she didn't understand and he bent down, allowing the younger witch to whisper in his ear something that made his eyes widen. Their conversation lasted for quite a moment, and it was her time to arch an eyebrow – not as well as he did, unfortunately, but she thought she did a very good job at it – to tell them it was maybe time to include her in the discussion.

"Sorry." He scratched the back of his head, and she couldn't help but notice he looked quite handsome doing that. "Hmm, my sister just reminded that we – my parents and us – were invited to the Prince's Ball and that we just happened to have a supplementary invitation. So I – I mean we – thought you might like to come. That is if you want, of course."

"Please Lu', you've gotta come! It'll be so much fun with you, and Harry still don't have a girl to go with, and you'd just be perfect together! Please, you have to accept!"

Later, Luna would tell herself that the only reason she accepted was because the Wrackspurts had gotten to her somehow – she'd have to tell her father that apple weren't useful for that – and not because of Elise's puppy dogs' eyes, much less for her older brother much too handsome smile.

"I'm not sure I can come… I mean, my step-mother probably won't want me to leave the house that night, so…"

"Do you want to come?" Harry cut her off, a spark of determination in his eyes.

"I…" Did she want to? This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and she knew that if Rita got the invitations she had gone for, there wouldn't be one for her. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

The siblings shared a winning smile, and Harry took a creamy white envelope of his bag.

"You carry invitations to the Prince's Ball in your bag?"

He looked sheepish again. "Well, like I said, I just needed to be reminded we had them."

Somewhere a clock rang eighteen times, and the moment broke as Luna realized she had less than half an hour to be back to the house and put what she had bought away, and it was a twenty minutes' walk until there.

She took the envelope carefully and placed in her own bag, before she said a hurried goodbye to her new friends, running toward her home.

The last words she could hear were from Elise, who whispered perhaps a bit too loudly an enthusiastic 'isn't she perfect?'. But there was no way they were talking about her.

~~oO-_-Oo~~

The night of the Ball came even more quickly than she had expected it too. She had feared she wouldn't be able to go if Rita learned of the invitation she had received, and she had been right. Rita had been livid, and her daughters so jealous they ripped all her dresses apart, leaving her with a ton of chores to do and nothing but rags to wear.

But magic was there for her. This wasn't a fairy tale, there was no fairy godmother to help her, but she had her own magic, and access to a whole library. Finding a spell to create herself the perfect dress wasn't difficult, and her mother necklace, which actually was just a single silver chain with her mother engagement ring as hanging (a ring she had noticed fit her finger perfectly too), found a perfect place around her neck for the first time as animation spells took care of cleaning the house in her absence.

The invitation was a Portkey, and all she needed was to write the time at which she wanted to come back for it to bring her back at that moment.

She hesitated for a moment, putting a small rebel strand of blond hair behind her ear as she scribbled 'midnight' with her best quill on the 'hour of return' space.

Some witches had apparently been very bored in their lives, because Luna even found spells to put make-up, which was a good thing seeing as she: one, didn't have any (and wasn't about to steal Rita's, or her daughter's), two, didn't know how to put on and three, already lacked the time to do. With those spells, all it took was imagining what one wanted to have, and wave her wand.

It was how Luna found herself ready and not even late when her Portkey took her away to the King's castle, where the Ball took place.

Hogwarts was a beautiful place. She had seen pictures, of course, everyone had, but seeing it was really something else. It was magnificent, and for a moment her vision blurred. Yeah, another advantage of make-up spells: tears didn't ruin it.

Avoiding the people she knew and didn't want to see or be seen with was easy, the place though gigantic was crowded, but finding someone was proving itself to be something else entirely. Before she knew it, she had danced with a dozen of men, some younger than her, other older, but there was no sign of the one who had invited her and her feet were beginning to get tired.

"Lu'! You came!"

Of course it would be Elise who found her. Luna was nearly knocked to the ground as the young witch crashed in her again, and it was only the fact that she wasn't wearing high heels like everyone else that saved her.

"Elise. I'm glad to see you."

"Did you miss me?"

"Of course I did. I had no one who crashed in me for two whole weeks, how did I ever survive?"

"I missed you too. Come one, Harry's waiting."

Luna let herself get dragged toward a dark corner of the Great Hall, near the entrance where she found a nervous looking familiar young wizard.

"Hi."

"Hi." This was incredibly awkward, but Elise was there to break the silence and pushed Harry toward Luna who gave his new companion an apologetic look, to which Luna answered with a smile, and just like that everything was alright again.

"So are you ready to make your great entrance?"

Luna looked at him, perplexed but nodded anyway.

"Great. Let's go." He led her toward the entrance door, and whispered something in a guard's ear, who looked surprised for a second but then nodded. Someone fired a spell, and the room was suddenly quiet. Luna hadn't noticed just how noisy it had been until that moment, but now that silence filled the room she realized just how many people there were.

Harry locked his arm with hers and they stepped confidently back into the room.

"Announcing, Miss Luna and her escort, Prince Harry Potter."

She was surprised, but knew better to make a scene. Instead she whispered as lowly as she could. "You're the _Prince_?"

"Yep."

"You could have told me."

"What would it have changed?"

Nothing. "Well, it would have been the truth for one."

"When did I lie?"

He hadn't. "Your sister told me your parents were _away_."

"They were. Ruling a kingdom isn't as easy as it sounds."

"I'm not stupid you know. I could have told you that."

The rest of the dance was much more silent, and she felt calm slowly fill her. When the music ended, he bowed in front of her and they left the floor to more experienced dancers.

"You don't like to dance?"

"Truthfully, that was the only one I know. My parents tried to teach me, but it's actually the first time I do not step on my partner's toes."

"I can assure you my feet are very much in one piece, and that you didn't hurt them. They thank you for that."

He laughed and for a moment she felt disappointment. Was he mocking her too?

"I can't believe you managed to say that with a straight face."

"Say what?"

Perhaps he sensed he was venturing in dangerous waters, but Harry quickly changed the subjects, taking two glasses of champagne as a tray flew by, enchanted not to fall or break, and offered her one.

"Anyway, I think I figured out why dancing never worked out for me before."

"Oh, and why's that?"

"I didn't have the right dance partner."

She hadn't noticed it, but they were back in that dark and secluded corner where she had first found him, before they danced.

"Can't they see us?" People strode by, only a few feet away from them but no one seemed to notice their presence.

"No, it's been enchanted that way. Only someone allowed to come by the royal family or of the royal family can see us."

"That's a great spell. Who designed it?"

"You're interested in spell crafting?"

"My mother was one. A spell crafter I mean. So I think I'd like to follow in her footsteps you see, continue what she began, maybe even finish it. She had so many projects… Did you know that she was trying to find a spell that would allow us to communicate with magical creatures in their own language?"

It was a well-known problem that translation spells didn't work on magical creatures, which made communication very difficult and had actually been the cause of numerous wars and political incidents.

"So what's your name Luna-I'm-Interested-In-Crafting-Spells?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I believe my sister said it best. You're perfect. I'd like to know who you are so I can ask your father for his permission to court you."

Her hand flew to her necklace, a gesture she had taken to do when overwhelmed. She opened her mouth to answer him when she saw the last person she wanted to see: a furious Rita, who was asking the guard who had announced their entrance who that girl had been and what her full name was. Forgetting that she couldn't be seen, she panicked and ran out of the room, out of the castle.

Harry followed her but by the time she reached the outside, and the lake, she heard a clock ring midnight and felt the Portkey heat up in her handbag. By the twelve gong, she had disappeared, leaving behind her a lonely Prince and a fallen piece of jewelry that sparkled under the moonlight, promising something only the stars could understand.

When Luna appeared back to her house, she cursed herself for running away. She didn't have much time to think though, because she knew now that her stepmother and half-sisters would come back as soon as they could to see if the girl dancing with the Prince had really been her. A wave of her hand turned all the objects she had animated back into, well inanimate objects, leaving only a spotless manor and a tired girl still in her silvery dress. A few other waves of her wand took care of that problem too, and fifteen minutes later she was in her bed, just in time to fake sleep as Rita came to check her room.

It was only when the suspicious older witch left that she breathed again and raised her hand to her throat, only to find in panic that her necklace was gone. She had lost it! And her father who was coming home in two weeks, what would he say when he learned that she had lost the only piece left of his wife in this world? That she had lost the one thing that had belonged to her mother?

She had to find a way to get it back.

~~oO-_-Oo~~

Well, she hadn't counted on being locked up in her room for every moment she wasn't working herself to death doing chores for her so called family, and she quickly found herself yearning for that night at the Ball where everything had seemed so simple in a Prince's arms. A Prince. She still couldn't believe it, that she had met a prince and that he had liked her. She had even met a true Princess, even though the little Elise absolutely didn't behave like a Princess but more like an adorable and annoying little sister.

She hadn't even spent a whole day with them and she missed them more than she did her father. In that short time they had managed to become her family in a way his father wasn't anymore and she missed the easy banter she shared with them. She missed their – his – smile, she missed laughing, she missed being free.

She had been like a butterfly for that one afternoon and that night, caterpillar finally hatching into the butterfly it was meant to be, but now she felt like someone had cut her wings off before she could even fly for the first time.

It was a terrible feeling, and she couldn't wait for her father to come. This time she would tell him the truth. She had learned something, finally. Yes, the truth hurt, but it also set you free, and there was nothing sweeter than freedom.

She had been swiping the floor of their living-room for what felt – and probably was – the tenth time when she heard someone knock on the door. Before she could go to open it, though, Cho ran past her, letting her catch the too sweet smell of her perfume, followed by Marietta, whose skin seemed to have more make-up than the bottle she had used could possible contain, and Rita banished her to her room.

She had her wand with her, though, and no one noticed the small listening spell she cast. With it she'd know everything that happened even though she wasn't in the room.

She needed not to have bothered. Voice rose quickly, and she had to shut the spell because it was creating an echo with the screams she could hear from the floor below. Her heart leaped in her chest as she recognized the voice, the only man's voice that could be heard. He was looking for her, but the three women were telling him she didn't live here. She was locked in her room, but she had to get out before he left.

She tried every unlocking spell she knew, but whatever Rita had used held against them. Cursing in a very unladylike fashion, something she never did, Luna looked around the room for something to destroy the door with. After all, if magic didn't work, there was always the old fashioned way.

Two minutes later, the door was in ruins in front of her, and she run down the stairs, another something she had never done before and had sworn not to. It was just in time too, because her prince had been just about to leave the room.

"Harry!" She was just about to grab his arm, but of course she twisted her ankle at that moment and fell in his arms instead. "You're here!"

"Hello Luna."

"It's Lovegood by the way. And my father should get here by the end of the week. That is if you're still interested."

"Believe me, I am. I have a feeling life would never be boring with you. And Elise loves you."

"Well, she has good taste."

"That she does."

Maybe Rita and her two daughters chose that moment to manifest their presence again, but Harry and Luna never noticed this. I heard a first kiss can cut you from the outside world. Though, with those two, I get the feeling it won't be just for the first.

Fin.


End file.
